Kudos
by Junebugsm
Summary: Ana and her parents come over to apologize to Stef and Lena for Ana's behavior and to talk about something else that prompts the twins to rethink their lives.
1. Chapter 1

**Ana and her parents come over to apologize to Stef and Lena for Ana's behavior and to talk about something else that prompts the twins to rethink their lives.**

(A two-shot dedicated to Stef and Lena for selflessly being everything the twins needed but never had. I thought of this because the twins always seemed to need something more and while I do understand them wanting to know the people they came from and what their lived would have been, I just feel that Stef and Lena deserve a good word as well.)

* * *

"I just wanted to apologize for the way I showed up to the party last night." Ana said awkwardly as she sat on the couch with her parents, Stef and Lena on the chairs opposite. "I slipped and..." She trailed off as her eyes welled with tears. "God, everything I worked for..." She regretted.

"We understand." Lena said kindly. "Don't let this bring you down. You were doing so well and you can do it again." She encouraged. In so many ways Ana was like a child herself.

"There were so many old memories and emotions and it just got so overwhelming." Ana justified. "All the mistakes and feelings just got too much."

"I'm sure." Lena smiled gently. "Just remember, you have Isabella to work hard for." She said, reminding Ana that this time she can do something early enough to avoid another child being taken from her.

"No, I know." Ana said firmly. "And I won't slip up again." She said with determination. "I made mistakes once but I won't let that happen again." She added, glancing at the twins who were sitting on the step by the front door.

"I'm just glad you're okay." Stef spoke up, thankful that Ana had gotten home unharmed and with minimal drama.

"Thanks for taking me home." Ana said. Her parents had told her everything that she couldn't remember and they were all grateful that Stef hadn't just left her to find her own way. They all knew that Victor and Elena would never get through to their daughter in that state.

"Of course." Stef nodded in acceptance.

Ana turned to her parents, knowing that they had something they wanted to add. It was something the three of them had talking about this morning as they thought about what Ana had said about Stef and Lena taking the twins from her.

Victor and Elena looked at each other for a moment, silently deciding how to begin.

"We would also like to apologize for our behavior." Victor began, Elena being just a little too proud to actually say the words.

"For what?" Lena asked in surprise.

"We misjudged you." Victor answered honestly. "When we first found out that Mariana and Jesus had been adopted we were upset and when we got to know that you were..." He trailed off, trying to find an in-insulting term. "both women," He settled for. "We were a little upset and that's why we were hesitant to allow Ana to give Isabella to you."

Stef and Lena were both listening with interest while Victor looked them straight in the eye. Ana and Elena both avoided eye contact by looking at their hands.

"We know now that you are good parents and have done well for Mariana and Jesus." He continued.

"We love them like they are our own." Stef said honestly without missing a beat.

Victor nodded and paused, glancing at the two children in question before turning back to the couple and continuing.

"I honestly believe that once they got to know us and got involved with us they would see things our way - join us for more family functions, spend more time with us, go to church, get baptized." he listed. "But they chose you every time and it made me realize that just because we have the same blood doesn't mean that we are their family. You are truly their family."

Neither Stef nor Lena really knew what to say. For starters, neither had imagined that all this ever even crossed their minds and more importantly they didn't know how they felt about Victor's admission. The twins were their kids and had been for more than half their lives and they couldn't even imagine their life without them. Thinking about them leaving to go back to Ana and her family was just unfathomable.

"Don't get me wrong." Victor quickly added, noticing the looks on their faces. "We never judged you as parents, we just..." He paused once again, trying to find the right way of explaining his thought. "We were just upset that we never got the chance to do right by them"

"We are sorry for that." Stef said, understanding just a little. "They were already in the system when we got them and we just wanted to give them a stable home."

"And you did." Victor assured. "We have gotten to know them over the last few months and we would be proud to call them our grandchildren."

"Thank you." Both Stef and Lena said with smiles.

"We've watched you handle them and we do admire the way you support and guide them no matter what mistakes they make." Victor said. "When Mariana brought Ana into your life and now with Gabe."

"They are..." Lena began but then changed her sentence. "You all are their family too. We would never keep you from them." She assured.

"As long as they are safe and happy, we have no objections." Stef added.

"We understand that they want to know where they came from and what their lives might have been like." Lena said sympathetically.

"Mariana told us a little about the other two children you adopted." Victor explained. "We thank god that our grandchildren found parents like you so early on instead of suffering in the system the way those other children have."

"The system is a mess." Stef agreed wholeheartedly. "Callie, our other daughter, is trying very hard to make a change." She informed them.

"I hope she succeeds." Victor said supportingly. "People like you are what make it change."

"We appreciate that." Lena said gratefully. "But we do love Mariana and Jesus and we needed them just as much as they needed us."

"And all mistakes are in the past." Stef added, remembering how Mariana had retreated after the shooting. "I choose to go into that house unprotected and that's on me, not them." She said firmly.

"Unprotected?" Victor asked in confusion as Elena also looked up.

Ana and Mariana shared a look before Mariana sheepishly spoke up. "I never told them about that." She said, almost apologetically.

Victor and Elena turned towards Mariana and Ana, waiting for some sort of expiation to clear up their confusion.

"Um... my boyfriend shot Stef." Ana explained, avoiding looking at her parents. "I took some money from the twins and Stef though Jesus was in danger. She came to my house but my boyfriend shot Stef."

"Ana." Elena said, upset that her daughter would be in a relationship with someone with a gun.

"I'm not proud of it." Ana admitted. "I was so messed up." She looked so regretful for her mistakes. "Their son bribed me to tell the truth - that I wasn't there - and I took it." She admitted shamefully.

"You didn't pull the trigger." Lena said. It had taken her a long time to get over that incident and having gotten to know Ana - the real Ana - lately, she'd realized that she wasn't such a bad person.

"They still helped me." Ana went on, her voice filled with gratitude. "They were there for me when I was pregnant and they agreed to take Isabella when I wasn't fit to be her mother.

The room was silent for a while as everyone was taken back to those frightful months. Ana felt so lost and alone, Lena was terrified of losing the love of her life. The twins, especially Mariana, was afraid that she'd lose her whole family and Stef was trying to hold it all together.

"Well you are definitely better parents than we were." Elena spoke up, surprising everyone. "We gave up on Ana when things got difficult and we never should have."

"I thought you said she ran away." Lena stated.

"She did." Elena answered. "But we didn't really look for her and we never tried to contact her. We didn't even read the letter she sent us when she was pregnant." She admitted.

"We always assumed the worst." Victor added. "She'd done it all before and we never believed that she was trying."

"People with low self-esteem often slip up and fall back because of other people's expectations." Lena said honestly "They think that if this is what someone expects from them then they don't have what it takes to prove them wrong."

"It feels like that sometimes." Ana admitted. "It's easier to just give in."

"Everyone does." Lena assured. "It's not just addicts and it's definitely not just you."

"It's easier now." Ana confessed as she glanced to her parents. "It's still hard but it helps knowing I have somewhere to turn when I can't handle it all."

Elena smiled at her daughter, thankful for this second chance. Slowly, but surely, her family was coming back together.

"We assumed you wouldn't have liked it when the kids wanted to know their parents." Victor said. "Their _birth_ parents." He clarified.

"They are kids and they are curious." Stef replied, looking at her two children fondly. "We know they love us and they know that we love them. We are their parents and at the end of the day we're the ones they come to when things get too big for them."

Mariana and Jesus smiled at their mom, nodding in agreement.

"But sometimes it's too late." Mariana said regretfully, thinking that if she'd just told them where Jesus was headed before he got to Ana's house then Stef could have avoided the bullet.

"It's never to late." Stef corrected firmly.

"You are teenagers and you're learning how to be adults and we know you aren't going to come running to us for every little thing like you did when you were little." Lena added. "It's natural for you to experiment and test your boundaries."

"Not that this is a free pass to do whatever you want." Stef warned playfully, eyeing them each carefully.

"We would love to hear some of the things they did as kids." Victor requested. "We missed out on a lot." he admitted.

"Of course." Lena agreed immediately. She remembered wanting to know everything about Brandon's past when the three of them had first become a family.

"There are boxes full of photographs in the garage, I'm sure we can make spare a few." Stef added with a smile.

"Now?" Victor asked with the enthusiasm of a six year old on christmas morning.

The other six in the room laughed though the enthusiasm was just as clear in Elena's and Ana's eyes as well.


	2. Chapter 2

"Oh remember this one?" Stef chuckled as she handed Lena a photograph of Jesus up in a tree with a pillow and a granola bar.

"Oh, yeah." Lena smiled as she took the photograph from Stef, studied it for a few minutes and then passed it to Elena who was waiting impatiently for a chance to have a look even though she had a box-full of them right in front of her.

"This was when Jesus ran away from home." Stef explained, still chuckling at the memory. "He was about seven and the twins were invited to visit the zoo with some friends but Jesus was having a particularly bad day. He was excited and just, all over the place and he broke Lena's favorite vase." Stef said.

"It had been my grandmother's." Lena explained. "Hand cut crystal and absolutely gorgeous." She recalled.

"Anyway, Jesus accidentally broke the vase and tried to hide it." Stef continued. "Mariana told on him and Jesus was so upset with her for it." Stef smiled at Lena as the two reminisced. "Well, we got upset with Jesus and said he couldn't go to the zoo and he was angry with Mariana for tattling and when we told him he couldn't keep yelling at her and he said we were..." She paused, turning to Lena once again as the two tried to recall the exact words the seven year old had said.

"...The most _pregnantist_ parents in the whole world." Stef and Lena said together as they laughed.

"Pregnantist?" Elena and Ana asked in unison, wondering that exactly that meant.

"We think he meant prejudiced." Lena explained, wiping her eyes to rid them of the tears of laughter.

Victor, Elena and Ana joined Stef, Lena and Mariana in laughing as Jesus looked down in embarrassment, just waiting for this story to end.

"Why was he in the tree?" Victor asked, wondering what all this had to do with the picture.

"Well, we laughed then too and he got even more upset and decided to run away from home." Lena said.

"Ran up the stairs, grabbed his pillow and walked right out the front door." Stef continued. "Walked around the house, climbed the tree and sat there for all of twenty minutes before he decided that one granola bar wasn't going to cut it."

"Ha ha ha." Jesus said once the entire story was over. "Just remember, I was six." He reminded them all, rolling his eyes.

"I was six too, I didn't run away to a tree." Mariana pointed out.

"No, you ran away to the dining room." Jesus said.

"What?" Mariana shrugged, as though it was the most natural thing in the world. "We weren't allowed outside the house after dark." She defended. "Besides, no one _ever_ used the dining room."

"Tell me about this one." Ana said, handing Lena a picture of Brandon and the twins all dressed up with a corsage on Mariana's arm and a rose in the lapel of the boys' jackets.

"That was Brandon's very first performance." Lena said with a smile, handing the picture to Stef.

"Right." Stef smiled nostalgically, remembering her little boy performing for almost a hundred people at just nine years old. "We were so proud of him."

"I had a dress almost exactly like that one when I was around your age." Ana said to Mariana before turning to Elena. "Remember the blue dress with the little bows at the bottom of the skirt?" She asked her mother.

"I remember that one." Elena said, reaching for the picture in Stef's hand to have a look at the dress.

"Grams bought me that dress just for the concert." Mariana told them. "She said 'everyone dresses up for the theater'" Mariana quoted with a bright smile.

"Here was their first trip to Disney." Stef said, peering over Victor's shoulder at a picture in his hand.

"That was the best day of my life." Jesus said, still relishing that adventure.

"These were from their last birthday." Lena added, going though a small pile of pictures on her lap.

For a few moments each one just looked through the pictures, occasionally passing some around and telling the story behind it when suddenly Ana became exceptionally quiet. Everyone peered to see what photos she was looking at and saw Mariana sitting in the grass with Stef and Lena each kissing a cheek.

Another of Jesus sitting on Stef's shoulders, ready to shoot a basketball into the basket while Lena and Brandon cheered from the sidelines.

A third was of Brandon and both twins sitting in front of the TV with chicken pox marks all over them. Lena was sitting between the twins and in the picture you could see her gently pulling Jesus' hand away from scratching his face while Mariana had a head reacted against Lena, playing with a curl of her hair.

"That's the box from when they first came to live with us." Lena said softly, realizing the significance of the pictures in that box - the kids in those pictures were the ones that even Ana remembered.

The atmosphere filled with silence and bittersweet heartache as Ana flipped through a few more of the pictures.

Mariana standing in front of their car with a double scoop ice-cream cone in her hands, smears of ice-cream on her nose, chin and down her t-shirt and the biggest toothless smile on her face.

A very proud Jesus on a bicycle peddling on the sidewalk with Stef sitting on the curb, a spanner and a set of training wheels discarded beside her.

All three kids in bathing suits running through a sprinkler on a hot day, a hat on Mariana's head and t-shirts covering the boys' bodies.

Stef and Lena with all three kids dressed up in fancy clothes standing with Lena's parents around a cake with the number sixty on it.

Mariana and Jesus with Stef, Lena and Brandon in front of a huge cake that said 'Introducing Jesus and Mariana Foster', and surrounded by a pile of unwrapped presents, paper and bows.

"Excuse me." Ana said as she put the box down and quickly left the garage, trying hard not to let anyone see her cry.

Stef, Lena, the twins and Ana's parents all looked on helplessly. As happy as Stef and Lena were to call Mariana and Jesus their children they understood how hard it must be for Ana to watch her kids be a part of another family.

Victor and Elena began to follow Ana but much like the night before, Stef stopped them. "Please, let me." She said, hoping to have a word alone with the woman who was once also a mother to her children.

Stef went outside and found Ana staring at the rather empty street, trying to regain her composure. She walked over slowly, trying to think of what to say but before she could speak, Ana spoke up.

"I could never have given them even half of what you did." Ana admitted, her voice filled with regret. "Even if I hadn't been high all the time, they would have suffered."

Stef remained silent, unsure of how to respond. She couldn't disagree with the woman for even if she wasn't spending all her money on drugs, they still wouldn't have had enough to get by.

"They were better off with you." Ana said in a eerily emotionless tone. "I'm not cut out to be a mother." She added, more to herself than to Stef.

"You're not a bad mother." Stef finally spoke up. "You're doing so well for Isabella."

"Look at last night." Ana reminded her with a sarcastic laugh. "I left my baby with my niece and went out and got drunk." She said regretfully.

"We all make mistakes Ana." Stef said in a motherly tone. "None of us are flawless."

"You ever get so drunk you ruin your kids' birthday party?" Ana asked with a raised eyebrow.

"I lost Mariana in a mall once." Stef replied. "I let Jesus climb a tree and he fell and broke his arm. Brandon thinks I'm related to Hitler and Callie says I'm incapable of turning off 'cop mode' even when I'm not at work." She listed. Then, as an afterthought to lighten the mood slightly, she added. "And if you ask Lena, she'll give you a nice, long list of all my mistakes." She smiled, hoping to bring a smile to the younger woman's face as well.

But while Ana did smile slightly, it was obvious that she was still upset.

"Ana, everything that's happened is in the past." Stef said seriously. "There's nothing anyone can do about it and there's no use dwelling on it. You've got a second chance with Isabella. You know the mistakes you made the last time and you can do something about it." She said encouragingly. "In fact, you're already doing something about it." She corrected and elaborated when Ana looked up at her quizzically. "You asked your parents for help this time which is a huge step." Stef said. "And you're working so much harder at staying sober and being a good mother to your daughter."

"Will it be enough?" Ana asked, a hint of hope in her voice.

"If you keep working at it, it will be." Stef assured. "And as for the twins, we may be their parents now but the only reason we got that chance is because you brought them into this world and you are a very important part of their lives. You may not be their mom any more but you are their family and they want to be a part of your life so you're getting a second chance with them too. So right there are three perfectly good reasons to keep working at it."

* * *

"Stef and Lena stood motionless at the kitchen sink, Lena with a dish and sponge in her hands and Stef with a plate and towel in hers - waiting for Mariana to say whatever she had come to say.

Mariana looked to Jesus for a moment before taking a step forward. "We just wanted to say thank you." Mariana began.

"For what?" Stef asked with a frown.

"Understanding." Mariana answered. "Understanding when we want to know our birth family, supporting us through it and being there for us when things don't work out the way we want them too."

"Honey." Lena said, a frown on her face, not liking the fact that her kids seemed to feel so indebted to them.

"No." Mariana stopped her. "We just want to make it clear that we aren't missing anything." She said. "We just wanted to get to know Ana and Gabe because we are a part of them but you are our moms and if we had to choose, between you and them, we'd pick you." She said sincerely.

"And thanks for not making us choose." Jesus added, realizing how easy it would be for his moms' to say that they weren't to their biological parents ever again.

"Yeah, thanks for understanding." Mariana agreed as she walked up to her moms to give them a hug. "I love you." She said as their arms wrapped around her.

"We love you too baby." Lena said as Stef held out her arms for her son to join them. "We love you both so much."

The four of them stood together in the middle of the kitchen, each one thankful for the family they had and the life they were given.


End file.
